


Ghost

by APHTrashbin (verfens)



Series: Cyborg AU [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cyborgs, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verfens/pseuds/APHTrashbin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Gilbert Beilschmidt, who was renamed unit PR-5514 on the day he was murdered and turned into a cyborg. Next installment of my Cyborg AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost

It was a long fucking drive. Why did his cousin have to live so far out in the middle of goddamn nowhere? He was driving up into the Alps, in a shitty old car that desperately needed upgrades on pretty much  _everything._ However, that was one of the reasons he was going to see his darling of a cousin, Erika Vogal, on the eve of her wedding, spending some time preparing the location before her rather scary bride to be was going to come.

He was so happy for her, and really, he was, even though he was single, single, single.

Of course, of course he wouldn't actually do anything about his singleness, but he always got so sappy when his friends and family married and he was still by his onesome.

He turned on a remake of "All the Single Ladies," in an effort to dance it out before he got there.

He had with him the ring his brother had given him as a birthday gift in his chest pocket, feeling it when he grew nervous.

Ludwig had…broken off relations with his older brother. It had been a few years now, but the scars were still there.

He wouldn't talk to him, as Ludwig had asked, but that didn't mean that the recovered man didn't want to see him, know him again. Gilbert had been in a bad place, and he knew that Ludwig had been put up to it by his mother- who had never liked Ludwig's older half-brother, but Gilbert only sighed. It had all been said and done now.

XXXXXX

Once he finally arrived, Erika was in a flurry, preparing for her bride to come meet her, but hugged him eagerly, happy to have the help.

The time seemed to fly; Erika's wedding in three weeks time. The two went for a walk in the woods surrounding the beautiful home that Erika would be living in with her bride once she arrived in 10 days or so, and Gilbert had gotten into a snowball fight with her, the two laughing and feeling young once again, before Gilbert heard something. "Erika!" He shouted, before he felt something hit the back of his neck, and heard her scream his name, before he knew no more.

XXXXXX

He heard voices around him, speaking in scientific jargon, and so he instantly assumed he was in a hospital, but the…GPS… told him he wasn't. What the hell?

When Gilbert next opened his eyes, he wasn't really opening them. It was an illusion to those around him, and he knew this somehow.

"What…what the  _fuck_ … what did you  _do to me?!"_ He screamed, freaking the  **fuck**  out.

Because he could see his body lying still on an operating table, the brain removed from the skull, and his body was most clearly  _dead,_ but he wasn't. He sat up, or tried to, but what would become his body was still in pieces.

He felt his new body, his eyes widening as he looked himself over. He was currently a disembodied robotic torso, his legs in front of him, but nothing of incredible substance attaching them. He looked up at the men and women staring down at him with cold eyes.

"Sergeant Beilschmidt." They said, detached. "Your foul language tells us your personality is intact."

"I was decommissioned, you fuckers!" He howled, enraged. "What did you do to me? Why am I a metal man!"

"Memory intact." The woman commented. "Testing knowledge. You should know where you are."

"Uh, why am I in this offshoot lab for the main  **fucking**  robotics industry…?" He asked, before he blinked. He had a GPS installed in him? What the hell?

"Locator devices capable, tell me, what is the year Germany was unified?"

"1871, but reunified in 1991." He said instantly, before his eyebrows shot up. "Why the fuck am I like, a human  _search engine_?"

"Knowledge capabilities clear." The woman said, before the man wrote it down.

"Stop asking me questions! I want answers to  _my own_!" He said, angry and scared and wanting to go home and chat up Erika and talk about her wedding plans in the spring and not be seeing his  **dead body**  resting in front of him, because holy shit that feeling was surreal and terrifying at once.

"Sorry, Beilschmidt, but you don't need to think about that anymore. You are the first successfully created human to cyborg being. Can you feel? What are you feeling right now?"

"I'm fucking  **pissed**! I didn't sign off on this shit!" He said, forcing himself up and off the table, his legs working marginally, and he fell to the floor.

"We understand  _you_  did not, but your  _grandfather_  did." They said, apathetic to his emotions, simply noting he had them. "You belong to us, Beilschmidt, more accurately, unit PR-5514. We gave you the allotted time and more to become a respectable human being, and now it's time to harvest you and your personality for the sake of science."

They went back to writing down results or some shit, calling guards to lift the robot back onto the table and restrain him, but Gilbert was having none of that shit.

He got up, his torso needing his hands to support himself, since he had no frontal abdominal piece, and he broke out into a run, seeing the mountain side, and knowing he had to make this choice  _now_.

"I would rather  _die_  with my body than be PR-5514 any day!" He yelled back at them, and launched himself out the window, screaming loudly as he fell, the rocks below meeting him faster than he would have liked them to.

XXXXX

The next thing he knew, he heard Erika's voice, tearful and concerned, asking him if he was awake.

"Uhh…Erika?" He asked, confused, trying to sit up, before he felt her warm arms hug him tight.

"What happened to you, Gilbert…?" She sobbed, clutching at the clothes she had most certainly put on him, since he hadn't been wearing anything beside something to cover his…robotic junk…?

Oh shit, he had lost his manhood. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't all that incredibly important, but it upset him greatly.

"I-I…" He teared up, looking to his hands, and buried his face in them. "I'm sorry, I…I woke up and I was facing my own corpse, except I was in this thing…I'm not human, Erika…I'm dead." He laughed, hollow, starting to crack at the seams, before she took his hand, and squeezed it tight.

"I've never thought a heartbeat defined human life." She said, quiet. "That's part of the reasons I've had an issue with those who identify as pro-life. Human is so much more, Gil, and you're still human." Her small frame pulled his larger one close, and he sobbed into her shoulder, incredibly upset.

"What's happened? I last remember going out on that hike with you, and then…nothing." He murmured, and she nodded, her kind green eyes turning sour, her forehead crinkling and her mouth turning downwards into a most certain frown.

"I knew they had called off the search too early." She said, growling. "They probably used it as a cover to take you to their lab. The avalanche was likely just a cover to kill you, and take you back to their lab." Her fists tightened. " **Ohh** , I'm so mad I let them get away with that, Gilbert…"

He nodded, looking down at his hands, seeing how they had gotten most of the scars and callouses correct, but knowing they weren't really the same marks as before… It was hard to reconcile the fact his human body was dead and gone and he was here, albeit just barely- since he hadn't been constructed fully, he was still incomplete.

Erika saw him frowning, and told him to stop that. "There's nothing we can do about how you're a robot, but you are one now. I don't see you as any different that the cousin I was told died on the mountain, and I don't plan on seeing you die out here again."

She huffed, and he chuckled. "Thanks, Erika…did you…what about the wedding."

"I postponed it." She murmured, green eyes darting away from his. "I couldn't have it when you had just…just died." She murmured.

"Oh, Erika…" He murmured, sighing. "I'm sorry…"

"You didn't choose to be made into a human cyborg." She hit him with her wrench on his head, making him yelp with surprise. "And if you did, well, then you and I need to have  _serious_  words."

He laughed weakly, and shook his head. "Will...will there be a funeral?" He asked, feeling sick at the thought, and she nodded, slowly.

"Well, the news traveled fast…" She murmured. "There will be one in a few weeks…we should work on if you want to tell them or not..."

"I don't want to put you in danger, Erika." He said, firm, red eyes focused on hers. "Hold the funeral, play dumb. You don't know anything about me being…well, here."

She nodded, and sighed, getting up and telling him to figure out how to get around, since he was a heavy piece of machinery, and she was still a 110 pound petite woman, despite her killer abs and biceps. "Natalia will still be coming in about a week's time now, Gilbert."

XXXXX

He worked on getting around as best he could, with no frontal support; he really had to work on keeping his back strong. This whole balancing thing was overrated, he muttered, walking as he leaned back so far he wasn't seeing the area in front of him, but rather, a nice view of the ceiling of Erika's workshop.

That was when he heard the screams, and a fight started in the other room. He heard gunshots, and Erika's screams went silent.

He hid himself, but there was a dragging noise, and footsteps going outside, not deeper into the house.

He looked outside the window carefully, and what he saw made him sick. Erika's green eyes were wide-open, tears dried on her face; her whole being paused in the moment before death- fear remained, in her creased eyebrows and her mouth open.

But she was undoubtedly dead, her chest wide open, in an obviously messy gun wound.

They hadn't come for him- they had come for  _Erika_.

And now, his beautiful bride to be cousin was dead.

Gilbert's tears dripped down his face, and he felt them in surprise and grief. So, even as a metal man, he could cry…

XXXXX

He had followed them to the place out of hard work and sheer determination, and following the trail of the people who had killed Erika. He had 24 hours or so, to find her. That was about as much time as he had been in there, Erika had estimated.

So, he found the bottom of the mountain, where she had found him, and bit his lip, before he started to climb, his stubbornness keeping his body upright as he scaled the mountainside. He wouldn't leave her there, in their hands.

Little Erika would be coming home, damn it all.

Once he had gotten to the top, he went under the massive facility, climbing up from beneath it, and into a lab. He found Erika's body, and gently pet her cold face, apologizing. Gilbert removed her gold and green engagement ring, and put it in his pocket. He didn't see a robotic form, but…he followed the cords attached to her head with his eyes and…

There. He snuck over to the computer her brain was hooked up to, and found the disc labeled "L-14", opening it's file, and discovered the coding, quickly reading it to find out that it was for a human base, much like his own, his robotic coding told him. He also found another few drives called "MEMORIES", but those hadn't finished downloading. He removed the first disc, sticking it in his pocket, when he heard people coming. MEMORIES had almost finished downloading…

He hid inside the cart, letting the fabric cover himself. He thanked that his skin wasn't metallic, because he would be making a racket if that were the case.

He heard the humans going over to Erika, laughing lightly about how nice of a fuck she would have been if she was still breathing, and one joked she was still a good fuck.

"But, shit, did we lose her ring?" Another voice complained. "It was real, gold and diamonds and a big ass emerald. The boss wanted it.

"Check on the discs." They said, disappointed, and they commented that the memory drive had finished downloading. "Good, now, remove it, get the L-14 Disc…"

"…SHIT!" The one by the computer yelled, turning around abruptly. "That's gone!"

"No, we didn't." A familiar voice came to Gilbert's ears. "I suspect that…it's still in this room." Gilbert burst out from his hiding place, grabbing the weapons of the people who had dared speak of fucking his dead cousin, and he pointed them at everyone else, not letting anyone get close to him.

"Gilbert." The man said, smooth. "Nice to see we were right, and you survived the fall."

"Fuck you." He said. "I don't know who you are, but in a few hours, Natalia, her fiancé is going to arrive to an empty house, because you fuckers killed my innocent little cousin."

"I'll make this very simple, Gilbert. I know you have her drive, so I'll propose a deal for you." He smiled, dark. "I'll put the bodies in places where they'll be found."

"Throw mine off the cliff or something." He said, growling.

"Fine…" Gilbert, still aiming his gun at him, and he grabbed Erika's body, slinging her over his shoulder. "What else?" He growled.

"I will willingly give you this." He said, holding up the disc labeled, "MEMORIES". "You will have to find a way to bring her back yourself, but you will have all of her to do it. In exchange…I want that ring."

Gilbert looked shocked. "W-why the ring?"

"Does it matter? Make your choice." The man said, smiling. "Your cousin's ring, for her memories."

Gilbert dug his hand into his shirt, feeling for one of the two rings he had, before he nodded. "Fine." He took out the ring from his pocket, and put it in his hand, and the man pocketed it, before handing him the disc, and then said. "Shoot him."

Gilbert knew he had to run, and now. He shot the man in the leg, not hesitating to shoot anymore.

The reason for his discharge came back to him. He hadn't been able to shoot. He thought it wasn't right for a human to shoot another.

Well, now he wasn't human anymore, was he?

Gilbert broke out of the facility, into the cold night.

Erika's body was placed on the floor, and he kissed her forehead, taking out the ring he had kept of the two in his pocket.

It was gold, with diamonds and Emeralds.

He had decided to give away the ring Ludwig had given him for his high school graduation, many years before. He pocketed the ring once again, not knowing that the man he had given away his ring to had realized the fake out, and ordered his men after him.

Gilbert's body was tossed later in the woods, the ring placed back into his pocket, useless to him anyway. Searchers found it, and went to confirm his death to Erika, whose fiancé was desperately calling from the airport, as she had just landed.

Gilbert left her there, her body still and small in death, and he ran, leaving the country.

That night, Natalia had cried alone with her body, calling up her sister, "Something terrible's happened, Irunya…" She said, cradling her lovers dead body, the place ransacked.

That night, Ludwig got the news secondhand from Roderich that his brother's body had been found, and the now 18 year old cried into the night, knowing that their relationship would never be reconciled.

That night, Vash had flown out on an emergency to confirm the bodies of his sister and cousin, the list of people he cared about shrinking.

That night, Gilbert took out the disc with Erika on it, and promised her this- he would bring her back, at any cost necessary to right this tragedy.

And he disappeared.

A year later, Gilbert managed to replace the disc of a random factory model of the brand new "most humanlike robot yet," with Erika's, but would have to give her the memories later.

Little did he know that he had picked the night that Vash was working, and so things started up back in motion.

Life would never be the same. They couldn't go back.


End file.
